Mrs. Grace, the wife of the late sound engineer, David Sunday, who was lynched when suspected motorcyclists attacked him and his friends in the Lekki area of Lagos State, demands justice as she reveals the last moments of her husband amid tears, in this interview with DEJI LAMBO.
How did you get to know about the events that led to your husband’s death?
I got to know about the incident through his colleague, Melvin, who called to inform me that I just lost my husband. I became shattered and had to meet my dad at the church, and handed the phone to him because I was unsure of what I heard.
They confirmed the same thing to him and told him to come to the Maroko Police Station to get the necessary details. My dad sent my younger brother, uncle, and one of our pastors to the station, and a senior pastor at the Church of God Nation at Lekki Garden City. His elder brother joined them there.
What were their findings when they got to the police station?
It was when they got there that the police told them my husband and his colleagues mounted a bike, got down at the Beer Barn, had an argument over a change of N100 and the fight happened and my husband was killed and burnt on the spot because the guys around were shouting that they were Yahoo boys and ritualists.
On the contrary, what his colleague narrated was that my husband was setting up for a show inside the Beer Barn, while two of his colleagues who mounted a motorcycle, had an argument with the motorcyclist. They agreed on paying N400 and gave the motorcyclist N500 to collect N100 but the motorcyclist said he did not have change.
So, they gave him N300 and told the motorcyclist that they always came to play at the Beer Barn and promised to give him his change when they saw him next time. The motorcyclist refused and that was how the fight started. So, when the fight was becoming much worse, people had to come inside the Beer Barn to call their other colleagues including my husband and they rushed outside to help.
But as they found out that there were many motorcyclists, they ran back to the venue but the manager of the venue sent them back and claimed not to know them. The motorcyclists caught up with my husband, beat him to a pulp, put tyres on him and burned him as if he was an armed robber.
How did your husband’s friends, Frank and Philip, manage to escape especially when they were the ones the motorcyclists were attacking initially?
When the manager of the club sent back my husband and other colleagues who wanted to intervene when Frank and Philip were being attacked by the motorcyclists, other colleagues escaped but my husband was unlucky. So, the motorcyclists caught up with him, started attacking him and as the attention was on him, some good Samaritans quickly rescued his two colleagues (Frank and Philip) and rushed them to hospital.
But as the motorcyclists looked back and did not see Frank and Philip, they became extremely annoyed, pounced on my husband and burnt him to death.
Who was your husband when he was alive? What were your reactions when you heard that he and his friends were wrongly labelled Yahoo boys and ritualists?
My husband did two jobs just to be able to take care of us. He was a hardworking man that was caring, loving, and ready to do any handiwork because he was a craftsman. He worked in the morning as a sound engineer in a church at Lekki Garden City, and in the evening, he worked with Legacy 360 band whenever they had a show.
It was one of the band’s shows at the Beer Barn that he went for when the incident happened. Most of the time when he went to any location, he sent me the location and after setting up and if he did not have anything to do, he would sit in the car, call me and we would be talking on the phone till I slept off. He was the one that helped and motivated me till I finished my Post Graduate Diploma in Mechanical Engineering at FUTA.
The plans he had for me this year was for me to go for my Master’s. now, I have no hope to go for that. So, I felt bad when I heard that they were tagging him and his friends Yahoo boys or ritualists. David or Dave Sound as he was fondly called was not a Yahoo boy or ritualist; there is evidence of the things he has done in the past that people can check.
What is your reaction to the government ban on motorcycle operations in some areas of the state?
Banning is not just the issue but enforcement. Most times we make our laws in Nigeria but we have no enforcement or most times when they do enforcement for a while, they stop. So, they should enforce it. It is not because of what my husband went through; it could be them or anybody tomorrow. It could happen to any of their family members because we are sitting on a time bomb, especially in Lagos State. Even people mounting motorcycles on highways are risking their lives.
What is your take on the current state of the investigation into the circumstances surrounding your husband’s death?
My opinion is that if his colleague can tell us what happened and we saw the video of the incident, that means his colleague that posted the video online is telling the truth. So, they should follow the investigation without leaving any stone unturned. Anyone that needs to be interrogated should be interrogated.
Are you aware that the Lagos State Police Command paraded some suspects in connection to your husband’s death?
I had to leave social media or stop monitoring the news because as of Thursday, they had to start giving me injections to be able to sleep. I have been on treatment since then. So, I had to leave social media; I can’t check anything online, so, I can’t know and if anyone around me knows anything, they don’t tell me because they know it is already affecting me. Most times, I wake up early around 9 am and as soon as I finish eating, if it is not an injection in the morning, I will be given drugs.
Can you give us an insight into the last moments you shared with your husband?
The last moment I shared with him was on Tuesday, May 10, 2022. He was going to the office and I was going to my dad’s place to pick the children up after school hours. We were supposed to mount the same motorcycle because our car was faulty and he was laughing and saying I was already bigger than him and both of us could not mount the same motorcycle.
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